Downburst (3 page)

I reach for the door, but just as I’m about to pull it open, I hear voices—deep, male voices. My hand pauses on the handle, and I put my eye up to a crack in the side of the car. Peering through the hole, I make out the shapes of two large men against the gray sky. They’re both wearing dark leather jackets with matching gloves, and their black hair is knotted above their collars. I can’t see their faces, but I do see tattoos. Black ink crawling along their skin, disappearing under the leather. My heart shoots rapid-fire against my chest.

After a moment, I see a third person. A girl. They say something to her, but the wind carries off their words, and I can’t hear what it is. Suddenly, one of them grabs her shoulders and shoves her against the side of a boxcar.

Then, before I can think of a plan, the thug pulls a knife from his belt and slides it through the girl’s throat.

I smother my scream in my hands. A strangled noise escapes, but it’s not enough to attract their attention. The man releases the girl, and her lifeless body slumps onto the tracks. The second man picks up her purse and spills its contents onto the wet ballast, scattering them across the hard rocks. A bottle of nail polish bounces close to the girl’s side. Her keys skid under a rail, and her wallet and cell phone land a few feet away. The first man picks up the phone, sets it on the tracks, and crushes it with his heel, while the second man grabs the wallet and removes the cash. Once he’s taken everything, he tosses the empty billfold back by the body. It hits the girl’s foot, making it twitch. Bile rises in my throat.

Then they walk away without saying a word, leaving me rocking back and forth in my boxcar, taking deep, shuddering breaths, trying not to throw up. Finally my brain snaps back on.
Get out of here, Kit!
I stagger to my feet and slide open the door, lower myself to the ground. I know I should run for all I’m worth, but I can’t move. Instead, I look at the girl.

She’s lying unnaturally on one arm, her torso twisted, legs curled together, head flopped back under the car. A steady stream of blood flows from her throat, making its way down her chest and onto the gravel. Neon blue paint, leaking from the cracked handle of the nail polish, mixes with the blood and washes the rocks in a hideous purple. My stomach lurches.

Blue nail polish.
I stumble a few steps back as realization sets in. Hands shaking, I crouch down to get a glimpse of the girl’s face under the boxcar. Her blank eyes are partially covered by her hair—thick, black hair with a blue highlight.

This time I don’t hesitate. I turn and run. Run and run and run. The girl’s sightless eyes hover before me, and I blink violently, but they don’t go away. I stumble on a rail. My ankle rolls, and I fall forward, catching myself with my hands. The rocks scrape slices of skin from my palms, but I don’t feel it. Everything around me is sliding out of focus. I find a pebble under my face, slimmer than the others, and stare at it until the ground stops revolving. It’s coated in mud, the ends tapered. Brown. Oval. Like my eyes. Like
her
eyes.
No!
The mutilated image returns, her vacant gaze, that blue highlight dipped in blood.

I dig my hands wildly under the rocks, into the drenched earth, searching for something solid to stop the spinning. Only ten hours ago, I had a conversation with this girl. I took her money; I gave her a fake I.D.

Fake I.D.

My hands stop digging as a lump forms in my stomach. The driver’s license, the one that looks like it could be mine, is it still with her? The ground remains unsteady, but for the moment I push the gory specter to the side. I think about the wallet the men pulled out of the girl’s purse, see it landing by her body. The I.D. would be in there. If I could just get it, I might still have a chance. I could find work. I wouldn’t have to go back to Williams.

All I have to do is take it.

But taking it means going back there, seeing her again, and I can’t do it, not that.
I’ll find another solution
, I think as I struggle to my feet. Right now I’ve got to get out of here before the police show up.

I take a step forward and then stop.
Sweet kava—the police!
When they go through the girl’s stuff, they’ll find the license.
I
touched that thing! They might connect me to the murder. I could get sent home, maybe even to prison. Unless …
Unless I remove the evidence.

I squeeze my fingers against my brow, try to think. But I know I don’t have a choice anymore, not if I want to be sure. I breathe in again, a deep, raspy breath, and force my legs to turn around, to walk back.
Just a few steps, that’s all it is.

I don’t look at her face, at her contorted body, at the pool of purple blood. I just stare at the ground and focus on the wallet, a patch of white against the awful backdrop of blue and red. I waver for a moment, the nausea returning.
You can do this!
I take a step toward it. And another. And another. Then, when I’m a foot away, I leap forward, snatch it up, and run.

I run faster than before, leaping over tracks, dodging boxcars, keeping my eyes on the distant highway that marks the end of the train yard. My ankle throbs, but I ignore it. I can’t let anyone see me.

I churn my legs harder. My feet only just skim the ground. I block out everything—the soreness in my body, the pit in my stomach, the bloody corpse. The only thing I allow myself to think about is the road.

Soon I can see the asphalt that means my freedom, and something else I wasn’t expecting: a chain link fence. Unlike the railing at the golf course, this fence has barbed wire strung along the top, and one look tells me I’ll have to find another way out. I run beside it, moving south, ever aware of how close I’m getting to the operating buildings.
Please don’t let them notice me
, I pray to whatever god might be feeling merciful today.
Please don’t let them see.

I scramble down a ditch and around a mountain of wet dirt, past piles of scrap metal and spare parts scattered around the yard. I dash from one to the other, squeezing by rusted bulldozers and giant PVC pipes until, finally, I can see a parking lot and the end of the fence.

I unsteadily survey the final stretch of yard. Not a soul in sight.
Now!
As I bolt for the parking lot, the ground tips away from me, and it’s all I can do to keep the asphalt in my field of vision. Finally, my feet touch the blacktop, and I run toward a large patch of bushes and trees on the other side, not even trying to be cautious. I duck behind the tightly grown shrubs and drop to my knees on the grass, sucking in air with wheezing gasps.

When I’ve caught my breath again, I slowly unclench my fist and look down at the wallet in my hand. It’s made of faux alligator skin, edges worn to a dirty gray, and it smells faintly of vanilla. Fingers shaking, I flip it over to open the latch and immediately drop it on the ground. The front flap is stained with blood. Big splotches of brown and purple.

This time I can’t hold it down. I bend over and retch whatever was left in my stomach. Even after my belly is emptied, I continue to heave. Acid burns my throat, and I stay doubled over, convulsing. Whenever I think I’m about to stop, I see the girl’s pallid face, smell the vanilla and toluene, and my middle seizes up.

At last the spasms subside, and I clutch a tree for support, try to clear my brain, remember my plan. I can’t stay here. I’ve got to keep moving. That’s it. Keep moving. Where should I go? The diner, to see Joe’s friend. Ask for food. Maybe bus money. But I need to do something first. What is it? Think! Right, the I.D.—I need to make sure I have the I.D
.

Holding my breath, I open the wallet and remove the cards tucked inside. My hands are shaking uncontrollably, and I have to close my eyes for a moment. When I open them again, the first thing I see is the license. I slump against the tree and utter a prayer of thanks to my divine guardian.

My eyes find the picture, and I brace myself for another wave of nausea, but the girl staring back at me looks nothing like the girl in the train yard. Joe was right. She looks like
me
—a cleaner, wealthier version of me.

I continue to stare at the photo, scrutinizing the details of the girl’s face, confirming the resemblance. It really is like I’m looking at my own picture, except … the smile’s not quite right. When I smile, I get dimples. Her cheeks are smooth. Still, that’s not something anyone’s going to notice, particularly since I hardly ever smile.

Flor Garcia is the name on the I.D., my new name. I take a deep breath. I should be able to pull that off—most people think I’m Latina anyway. I glance at the date of birth. I’m eighteen now, two years older than I really am.

Flipping the license to the back of the stack, I take a look at the next card. It’s the girl’s real license, and now I know three more things about her. She’s five feet six inches, she weighs one hundred and fifteen pounds, and her name is Aura Torres.

Aura Torres.
I press my fist against my forehead. Without meaning to, I picture her from the night before—her scornful gaze and strong perfume, chipped nails and made-up face. And then I think of her body, lying crumpled on the tracks. I exhale slowly. Then I cram the cards back in the wallet and shove the whole thing in my pocket. It’s time to go.

Staggering out of the bushes, I blink away the haze and try to get my bearings. The diner is west of here, so I’ll need to cross the street.

I turn to leave the lot, but as I walk past the cars, I catch sight of something that makes me stop. Parked between a faded blue pickup and a gold sedan is a red BMW.

Her red BMW.

The vertigo returns, and I steady myself on the bumper of the car next to me. What was Aura doing here? Had she actually come to
meet
those men?

A blur of movement is the only warning I get before something dark whips over my head, blocking out the air and light. I scream and strike out with my fists, but a hand clamps over my mouth. “Shut up, or I’ll kill you,” a man says in a deep voice. I feel something sharp jab into my back.

I stop struggling. The man grabs my arms and pulls them behind me, lashing my wrists together with a zip tie then pushing me forward. I’m dumped onto a back seat of a car, buckled in, and then the car’s starting and we’re backing out of the parking stall, moving out of the lot.

Rivers of cold sweat flow down the back of my neck. In my mind, I see the enormous black-haired men with their awful tattoos, see the flash of the knife before it drives into Aura’s throat, and my heart thunders in my ears. Is that who abducted me, one of those men? Do they know I saw them—did they see me run with her wallet? It’s so hard to breathe inside this bag.

Suddenly, the radio roars to life at full volume, overpowering the noise of the road, suffocating me even further. I press my hands against the seat, but it doesn’t help. I’m completely disconnected from the world—I can’t hear anything except the music. At any moment he might attack me, and I’d have no warning. My stomach is cramping itself into stone, and pellets of salty water drip into my eyes. I rub my face against the seat, but the bag just drives the sweat in further, making my eyes sting more.

I have no idea how long we’ve been driving when a bump in the road jolts me to the side, and I feel something in my right pocket dig into my leg. My switchblade. I hold perfectly still. Would it be possible for me to get it? I deliberate for several minutes. I have no way of knowing if the man is watching me or not, and if he sees me get my knife, he’ll take it away. But if I wait, I might not get another chance. I’ll just have to hope he’s focusing on the road.

Moving as slowly as possible, I shift my arms so that they’re resting on my right hip. And then, slowly, slowly, I dig my fingers into my pocket. The knife is shoved down deep, and it takes some concerted twisting to reach it. I try to keep my body still, but soon my back is twitching, my arms shaking.

Finally, my fingers latch onto the metal. I slide the blade up my pocket and slip it into my palm. Readjusting my arms so that they’re behind my back again, I aim the knife away from my body and push the button. I feel rather than hear the quiet swish as the blade pops out. I wait for ten seconds, but there’s no sign that the man heard anything.

Very carefully, I rotate the knife in my fingers and place the sharp edge on the plastic tie, moving the blade in a sawing motion, exerting as much pressure as I can. The loud music has turned out to be a blessing—even I can’t hear the sound of the knife. But it’s taking a long time, and it’s getting hard to hold the blade in my increasingly sweaty hands.